The present invention relates to bag handles and more particularly concerns a handle made of two interengaged and interlocked parts capable of being securely connected to one another and readily disengaged.
Open top bags of paper, cloth or plastic are frequently provided with a handle that serves also to close and lock the bag and, in some cases, also to hang it from a support. Such locking handles commonly comprise mating parts fixed to opposite sections of the upper rim of the open top bag, so that the two parts, when carried by hand, serve to both support the bag and hold it in a closed condition. Various resilient or snap type fittings are provided to secure the two handle parts to one another, and the two are often provided with complementary upstanding hooks by means of which the bag and its contents may be hung from a horizontal supporting rod. The required provision of special closing and locking devices, such as snap fasteners and resilient interfitting parts, adds to the complexity and cost of such handles. Yet, they are lacking in reliable locking of the parts and are often difficult to manipulate both in locking and unlocking. To provide adequate holding power for holding the two bag parts together, relatively small area snap-type fasteners require high dimensional precision and may require excessively large force to interengage the two parts.
Attempting to avoid some of these problems, a bag handle described in the patent to Bessermann-Nielsen, U.S. Pat. No. 3,339,823, makes the two handle parts of different size and shape so that all of one handle part may be inserted completely through the other. The larger part is provided with a hook to suspend the bag and also has a short flap to secure the smaller handle part in a closed position. The arrangement of this patent exhibits structural weakness, providing support for one-half of the bag handle solely from a relatively short small flap and inherently requires relatively narrow suspension legs, employing legs that are narrow at points where they are connected to the handle base rim.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a supporting and self-locking bag handle that avoids or minimizes above-mentioned problems.